San Francisco Plans to Sue Donald Trump for Sanctuary City Policies

BATTERY PARK, NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES - 2017/01/29: Protester holding a placard during the protest. Over 10 thousand people descended into New York City's Battery Park, near the Statue of Liberty viewpoint, vowing to fight President Trump's executive order banning Muslims from certain countries from traveling to the U.S. (Photo by Michael Nigro/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)Pacific Press

"The president's executive order is not only unconstitutional, it's un-American," CNN reports San Francisco city attorney Dennis Herrera said at a news conference. "This country was founded on the principle that the federal government cannot force state and local governments to do its job for it, like carrying out immigration policy. I am defending that bedrock American principle today."

According to the lawsuit, San Francisco has been a sanctuary city since 1989 when thousands of refugees fled from violent civil wars in Central America. And while its laws do not restrict undocumented immigrants from getting prosecuted for crimes, it does protect parents of American-born children from being deported and torn from their family. It should be noted that there is no legal definition of "sanctuary city." Still, an analysis cited in the lawsuit claims that sanctuary cities have statistically significantly less crime than other cities.

San Francisco, which NBC Bay Area says risks losing $1.2 billion in federal funding, says that Trump's executive order violates the 10th amendment which protects states' rights. Mayors of other sanctuary cities, of which there are as many as 300, have also said that they will go against Trump's executive order.

But San Francisco isn't alone in suing Trump. According to the AP, Washington became the first state to sue the president on Monday over his temporary ban on immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries.